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#221 - Abigail Johnson
321 Plays28 days ago
Contemporary fiction author, Abigail Johnson is here to chat about writing her first novel and the journey to publication. Abigail shares her experiences of writing courses and being short and long listed for several awards before finding her agent.
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Transcript
The Role of Writing in Storytelling
00:00:00
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question. love it. Because the writing is sort of everything, right? You can fix plot holes, but if the writer... So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this. So it's kind of kind of a gamble.
Meet Abigail Johnson
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast. On today's episode, I am joined by contemporary fiction author Abigail Johnson. Hello. Hello. Nice to meet And you too. Thank you so much for joining me.
00:00:28
Speaker
um Jumping right in, let's talk about the very exciting news that your debut novel, The Secret Collector, which is already out on Kindle, it comes out in just over a week um as of us recording this on paperback. So it will be out for everyone listening by the time this airs.
00:00:45
Speaker
um Abigail, tell us a little bit about the story.
The Secret Collector - A Tale of Transformation
00:00:49
Speaker
um So The Secret Collector is set just on the eve of the millennium, really. It's the end of 1999. And it's about an elderly elderly eccentric hoarder called Alfred, who um has lost his wife a few years previously.
00:01:07
Speaker
um He is no longer speaking to his only daughter. ah So he's feeling quite isolated, but um he keeps himself busy by collecting um only his collections have got seriously out of hand um and then the other key protagonist is a young care leaver called kian who um is kind of you know down on his luck a bit of a wayward character um and he ends up throwing a brick through alfred's window which causes a whole chain of events
00:01:43
Speaker
that eventually results in the pair of them being on a restorative justice programme together, where Cian has to help clear out Alfred's house of all his excessive hoarding.
00:01:56
Speaker
um So it's a story really about how these two characters who've kind of both written themselves off and also been kind of written off by society, build a relationship that actually transforms their lives, despite the fact that they completely hate each other and think they have absolutely nothing in common and couldn't think of anything worse than having to spend time with each other.
00:02:18
Speaker
and So yeah, that's it in a nutshell, really. That sounds great. I mean, I love a forced proximity with two characters that want nothing more than to be as far away from each other as possible. It always creates great tension and conflict in the story.
00:02:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think so. And a little bit of humour as well. And it sounds relatively low stakes as well. So it feels like this could be like a cosy book that you could just sit back and kind of really enjoy and relax.
Themes in The Secret Collector
00:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think ultimately it's an uplifting story, but there's some quite gritty issues um that are dealt with in the story as well. um A lot about sort of grief and loneliness, the care system.
00:03:01
Speaker
ah But I think... what really comes through is this idea that how community can be really important and and transformative for people, particularly people who are socially isolated and and vulnerable. But I think what's lovely is these characters at first could look seem like they have no redeeming features at all, but you kind of really go on a journey with them and and see, you know, the people they are at the end of the book is is quite different from who they are at the beginning.
00:03:32
Speaker
Yeah.
Research and Realism in Writing
00:03:33
Speaker
And was it fun to sort of dive into the world of hoarding and write about someone who was a hoarder? It was quite fascinating.
00:03:43
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think we've all seen those programs on TV where people come in and you think, oh my God, they've got like 85 mattresses and 300 copies of the Radio Times. How would that happen?
00:03:55
Speaker
But it's it's actually incredibly common and something that uh, has grown particularly since COVID. I think the estimates are, it can affect one in 20 people. Um, but it's, it's so hidden from us and we don't really know that world.
00:04:10
Speaker
Um, and I think sort of looking into it, I read stories of, uh, like for example, a person who had two houses, but they were all so full that he was sleeping in his car because there was literally no room for him in his house and his car was filling up as well.
00:04:27
Speaker
um So it was trying to get into the mindset of of how somebody switches from somebody who, in Alfred's case, actually starts off collecting antiques, but then following the death of his wife, it just spirals into something that he can no longer control, but it gives him great comfort. And he cares for all these items dearly, even though in most people's eyes a lot of what he has is absolute junk stuff.
00:04:55
Speaker
And it's really not as straightforward as somebody coming in and tidying up or taking those items away because they they're like a kind of safety mechanism for that person and, you know, a sort of crutch for them really. So, yeah, it was very interesting and, you know, gave me a real understanding into how people could end up in that situation and the effect it has on their families and loved ones as well.
00:05:19
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it sounds like you did quite a bit of research into this. Yeah, I did. And it was quite it was as I quite enjoyed it. um As I said, it's a bit of a hidden ah bit of a hidden world, but something that you know is actually on a much larger scale than most of us probably imagine.
00:05:36
Speaker
And we probably all know people who maybe have a bit too much stuff in their house or you know have collections that get out of hand. Or you you see things in the news, don't you? Somebody who's got a whole room dedicated to Return of the Jedi or or something like that. But it's kind of how that can tick.
00:05:53
Speaker
um becomes something that's actually hugely problematic. yeah And particularly sort of ah safety-wise, and you know, the fact that in Alfred's instance, if there was a fire, he probably wouldn't get out of that house alive.
00:06:07
Speaker
and And so also there's issues like people don't let somebody come into their house to maintain the boiler because they're embarrassed about the state of, you know, the house. um Yeah, so there's big safety implications as well.
00:06:22
Speaker
as the effect it has on them because generally they, a lot of people in that situation do feel a bit of shame and don't want people in their house, which is obviously very isolating. i yeah.
00:06:34
Speaker
Yeah.
Path to The Secret Collector
00:06:35
Speaker
In terms of the, the story itself, uh, how do you, this is your debut novel, but had you written much before the secret collector?
00:06:45
Speaker
So I'd written a previous novel, which began as a short story. um And I really enjoyed this short story, which is very different to this novel, but I kind of thought, I might just turn it into a novel. How how hard can it be?
00:07:01
Speaker
Having absolutely no idea how hard it is. yeah um So I did write the first novel and had a little bit of agent interest with that one, but didn't ultimately get taken on by any of those agents that for full manuscript.
00:07:17
Speaker
and So yes, this is my second novel. Okay, right. was this I've seen that you were long-listed for the Bath Novel Award twice in consecutive years, and then also the Exeter Novel Award shortlisted for Edinburgh Flash Fiction Award.
00:07:36
Speaker
um Was the flash fiction one for the short story that you mentioned, which you thought you would turn into a full novel? No, it was completely different. And the reason I did that was I'd never, ever been particularly interested in writing flash fiction I always had my eye on writing a novel and that was what I wanted to do i I think I was just feeling a bit stuck and somebody said to me why don't you just try and write something different you know just to get away from what you're writing but still being creative um so yeah I just had a go and I wrote this story ah specifically for the competition and it ended up doing really well which was which was lovely
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, cool. And but that was also contemporary fiction. Is that kind of your the space that you like to stay in? Yeah, that's very much my space. Okay, okay.
Awards and Motivation
00:08:29
Speaker
Yeah. And then the Bath Novel Award, Exeter Novel Award, was that the secret collector that was long listed for those?
00:08:36
Speaker
So the Exeter Novel Award was the first novel that I mentioned. Okay, yeah. The Bath Novel Award was both both times for The Secret Collector. um But I also did get long-listed a third time for my first novel as well.
00:08:51
Speaker
I've had a bit of an ongoing three times long-listed for the Bath Novel Award. Always Bridesmaid, never the bride. But I mean, that was an amazing experience to be part of that competition. I'd really recommend it to people who are writing a novel.
00:09:08
Speaker
um because what it gave me was just a real confidence to keep going and a bit of energy and motivation. um Particularly when I wrote The Secret Collector, I had in mind that I wanted to get a first draft finished in time to enter the Bath Novel Award because of the experience I'd had with my first novel.
Setting Deadlines for Success
00:09:29
Speaker
um I knew it was just like it was a deadline I could work towards and there's a real validation if you get longlisted because you know they do get an incredible amount of entries from around the world so making a long list it feels like ah a big deal and you you kind of start to think okay yeah i have got a story here that might you know resonate with readers so yeah it was a really good experience yeah i think Also, what you you you touched on it before is like giving yourself a deadline when you're, you know, when you you yeah i have a contract, there's nothing, there's no kind of fixed point where you have to have something done by setting yourself that goal of being like, oh, I want to enter into that thing gives you a deadline. I think that can be really healthy for for authors who are kind of out there on their own in some ways.
00:10:15
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Because you could just sit here for years in your turrets and the ah never put it out in the world and never feel it's quite good enough. And I think it's really, really hard to know when something's ready and when to let go. and You could edit forever, I think, and probably keep you know pruning and improving. But yeah, I think that deadline just gave me personally a focus, um something to aim for.
00:10:42
Speaker
um And yeah, found that really important because it just helps me get words down on the page if I know what I'm working towards. Yes. Yeah. At what point was it before these like um long listings, short listings that you did the, am right thinking you've done a, you did a Curtis Brown course?
Curtis Brown Course Experience
00:11:02
Speaker
Yeah. So I did the Curtis Brown course and and came up with the idea for the secret collector, almost specifically, to do the course which sounds like a bit of a backwards way of doing things but at that time I was still waiting to hear back from agents on my first novel and ah it was 2020 so it was lockdown year and I kind of we were heading we were sort of heading towards the autumn and I could see that the COVID situation was just going to go on a lot longer than any of us had imagined and thought I need to
00:11:38
Speaker
write something else and not just sit here waiting, refreshing my emails, waiting to hear back from agents who had the manuscript. So um I thought i'd I'd seen lots of things about the Curtis Brown course. and And for me, it felt like almost too indulgent to invest in myself in that way.
00:11:58
Speaker
um like a ah big risk financially ah it was a big time commitment I'd got two young kids it was lockdown were homeschooling I work as well um but I kind of knew I needed ah to have a bit again like I said deadlines but also structure and routine and i I felt like I still had a lot to learn and I'm so glad I did it in the end I almost didn't put the application in and I wrote a synopsis and I
00:12:30
Speaker
think I had to write the first 5,000 words or it might have even been 10,000 to apply. And I could see the shape of this story taking place. And i kind of just felt like it had a chance. And I don't mean that in an arrogant way, but I just thought, I think I had to have belief in it um or I wouldn't have applied for the course.
00:12:52
Speaker
and So yeah, that was the point that I applied. So I think it started in October of 2020 and And then I was aiming for the following May to have a draft finished ah to enter to the Bath Novel Award.
00:13:05
Speaker
Okay, right. Okay, so you really kind of, you got you really jumped in, I think, when you committed to doing the Curtis Brown course. Yeah, I mean, it sounds silly. I kind of thought, right, this is this is my last chance.
00:13:16
Speaker
It completely wasn't my last chance. It was really my second attempt at trying to get an agent and work towards the goal of publication. But I almost had to view it like,
00:13:28
Speaker
If I'm going to do this to make it worthwhile, I've i've really got to do it properly. And yes, it might not result in anything. And I might still be agentless and in a heap of tears 12 months' time.
00:13:41
Speaker
But I had to just sort of put all those doubts to one side and and really believe in it, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Curtis Brown course, like like a lot of these courses, they're they're all quite expensive.
00:13:54
Speaker
I'm just curious, what was the, what's the kind of time commitment that that it asks of you? So we had a kind of session every Monday with our tutor. i And it was Laura Barnett who taught my particular course. And she was, she was great.
00:14:14
Speaker
And so every Monday she'd sort of set an exercise and people would join in a kind of group chat. Because I did the online course. and Obviously it was COVID time, but I think I would have chosen the online anywhere. I don't live anywhere near London, so I wouldn't have done an in-person course anyway.
00:14:29
Speaker
um And then you sort of took it in turns to have a submission and and everybody in your group would feed back on that. So even if it wasn't your turn to submit, you were always quite busy reading books.
00:14:44
Speaker
other people's work and trying to really do just justice to the feedback that you gave them. And that was quite a steep learning curve as well, sort of looking at work analytically like that and working out what was working in a story or a chapter and what wasn't and being able to feed that back in a kind of positive way.
00:15:05
Speaker
So I think it's quite hard to quantify exactly what that time commitment was. Also, it was a strange time because we were at home a lot so I've kind of got no idea what concept of what time was during that period it just was like one long blanket of nothingness in so many ways so this was great for me because I could throw myself into something and I think in terms of how many words you wrote that was entirely up to you um i was very much fixed on I want to have a first draft by the time I finish this course and I always made it I kind of
00:15:40
Speaker
I'd almost got to the end of the first draft by the time the course finished. and So for me, that was quite a big commitment, but that was a self-imposed target or deadline I'd set myself.
00:15:51
Speaker
But yes, it obviously is a time commitment. I don't think you can just think, well, I'll slot in an hour a week. You have to yeah be committed to it. Yeah. And I imagine it's the sort of thing where you get back as much as you put in.
00:16:05
Speaker
so Totally. Yeah. I think that's entirely true. You know, Had you done um any critique or feedback groups before the course? I did a course with the Faber Academy ah ah quite a few years earlier. um And this was my first sort of dabble in writing, really. So I'd not really done any writing as an adult. And then in my 40s, I took voluntary redundancy and amazingly managed to
00:16:36
Speaker
sort of get three jobs in the week that I got made redundant. So I didn't need that cushion of redundancy money, particularly for, to keep me, you know, going as in I wasn't having an income because I got straight into another job.
00:16:51
Speaker
ah So I just thought, well, john I think I might do a writing course. I've always, I loved writing when I was a kid. And one of my primary school teachers told my mum that I would be an author. She thought I'd be an author when I grew up.
00:17:05
Speaker
But honestly, I really didn't think that was something that would ever happen to me.
Rediscovering Writing Later in Life
00:17:09
Speaker
i didn't know anything about the publishing world. I didn't know any authors. It seemed like something that happened to other people.
00:17:18
Speaker
ah But when I was young, I absolutely loved writing stories. And I just thought with this bit of redundancy money, know, I'm going to just do something for me. um And so I did it.
00:17:30
Speaker
I think it was like a beginning to write ah course with the Faber Academy. It was it was really just very introductory. um And so I did this course and really enjoyed it.
00:17:41
Speaker
And ah this was the first novel I was talking about. It started, as i said, just for a short story, because this course wasn't even about writing a novel. and i just thought I want to be creative again. I kind of miss that.
00:17:53
Speaker
And then i enjoyed the course so much that I went on to the next one, which was write the first 15,000 words of your novel. So that gave me a little bit of experience in terms of critique and and feedback.
00:18:06
Speaker
i have But there was a very different experience to Curtis Brown. I think just because I was much more developed as a writer by that point, I think I knew how to take feedback and I also knew how to give it a lot more than I did the first time round, which was very much sort of saying, oh, yeah, that's great.
00:18:24
Speaker
And not really knowing what else to say. um Yeah. So did have that little bit of experience, which helped me get the most out of the Curtis Brown course, I think. Yeah. I mean, there's a definite, I think there's a definite skill in being able to give feedback because I think something that quite a few people, especially when they, you know, when you're first starting out you, like you say, you don't really know what to
The Role of Feedback in Writing
00:18:45
Speaker
say. So you either just say everything's good or you say, Oh, I thought this was an issue. But I think the trap a lot of people often fall into is that they say that I would have written this bit differently, which is like not very useful because it's not your novel. So it's not about you saying,
00:19:02
Speaker
I wouldn't have written it that way. It's about saying, ah there was like you know there was an issue here, the pacing fell off to me. It's more like, highlight the issues. Yeah, digging into what those issues are. And I think that is quite hard to do. And one of the things they did encourage us to do with the Faber course was to read analytically. Again, which was even though I'd done a degree in English literature, it'd never i'd never read books in that way before in terms of, oh, what works structurally here? Or what's really making me want to turn the pages in this book or this story.
00:19:37
Speaker
ah So yeah, it is a particular skill. um And some people, I think it does come naturally, but for me, that that took a little bit of time too to get the hang of, I suppose. who Yeah, yeah. And it's one of those things where once you know the craft, you kind of experience stories in a much different way, the more you kind of do look at things analyt analytically. Yeah.
00:19:58
Speaker
And the other good thing I'd say about doing a course, although I really don't think that is the only routine at all it was just what helped me ah is that you do get to read in other genres that you don't normally read in and I think that's actually quite good for you as a writer to yes you know to read some sci-fi or some romance or historical fiction or something that you anything that you might not normally choose to pick up um I think you can learn a lot from those different writing styles and how writers approach telling those stories because actually everybody's trying to tell a story that has an impact on a reader and and looking at.
00:20:40
Speaker
that from different genre points of view is is quite a good lesson, I think. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Because at all those different genres sort of have built into the genre.
Learning from Diverse Genres
00:20:50
Speaker
There are specific sort of things, whether it's like themes or tones or pace that they really excel at. So like a psychological thriller will do, those books have ah such incredible mastery of tension.
00:21:02
Speaker
Whereas like, you know, you you can read like an epic fantasy and now you're you're getting into the world of just really incredible world building and things like that. Yeah, definitely. And um I think I do read a bit more widely now. And and I'm part of a book club is now and i as well, which I think also makes me read a bit more write widely. But yeah there's just there is a real value to that, I think, as a writer, to just not stick in your genre and think, well, I write you know i write thrillers. I'm only going to learn from people who write thrillers. I think there's so much to learn from so many different storytellers.
00:21:36
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. If you can just, even if, you know, you read every now and again, you dip into something new and you just pick up one thing in your subconscious, which you can kind of put in as like an extra sort of, um, an extra dimension to to your novel, which it wouldn't have had previously because, or, you know, it could make it stand out within the genre.
00:21:54
Speaker
Yeah. And I think also working out what you do and don't like as a reader is quite important as well. Um, yeah, as well as learning what works and what doesn't work. kind of knowing what sort of story you want to read.
00:22:07
Speaker
And when I first started writing, so I'd kind of had a little go at writing bits and pieces before I did my introductory course with the Faber Academy. I had no idea what I wanted to write, you know, what kind of storyteller I was.
00:22:23
Speaker
and I started writing a children's book. I had to go a little go at sci-fi, which looking back was terrible. and And I just think the journey I've gone on to actually just find out what my storytelling voice is and what I want to write um took a little bit of time to get there. But I'm kind of glad I went through those phases.
00:22:46
Speaker
I now don't have a. you know, a burning desire to write a sci-fi. It's, so that's been dealt with. Yeah, but that's good. And it's, and it's more common than you think. you know, I've had so many authors in here who say like, you know, that they're, they're writing one genre, but they, the first novel they wrote was in like a polar opposite genre, maybe a different age group, like you said. And it, you know, it can take a bit, you have to like, just jump in and try to figure out what, how it all fits together for you.
00:23:13
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And I'm very comfortable where I am now. No, this is, you know, the sort of writing I want to So I'm glad I'm, you know, confident with that now because I've tried a few other things.
Desert Island Book Choice
00:23:27
Speaker
Yes. um We are at the point in the episode where i ship you off ah and ask you, Abigail, if you were stranded on a desert island with a single book, which book do you hope that it would be?
00:23:42
Speaker
So this is a really difficult question for me because i I'm sure that everybody says that and I have heard other people struggle with this answer on this podcast, but I i don't tend to reread books.
00:23:54
Speaker
I love reading, but I'm always onto the next thing. And even though I have books, I consider my favorites. I i don't particularly reread them. So I thought about my favorite books and I thought, well, I really loved one day by David Nichols. Um,
00:24:10
Speaker
for just being a sort of perfect love story and the 90s nostalgia in there I i loved as well. um The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce was one that actually really made me think this is the sort of story I want to tell and it made me want to be a writer actually reading that book. So that was quite an important book in my life.
00:24:32
Speaker
um And then I also thought The Island by Victoria Hislop might be ah good choice for being on an island. a But in the end, because I thought, actually, this is a book I have to really reread, I picked The Appeal by Janice Hallett.
00:24:48
Speaker
And the reason I picked that was because it was so clever and the way it was written made me race through it. And when I got to the end, i kind of thought, I really feel like I need to go back in and unpick some of the clues and how how this story worked.
00:25:08
Speaker
I thought if I had a lot of time on a desert island, that would be the perfect book because I would try and solve that case myself before before Janice Hallett reveals the ending. and So yes, The Appeal by Janice Hallett.
00:25:20
Speaker
And that was a book i I looked at and thought, I don't really fancy reading that, but quite a lot of people seem to be saying it's good. Well, maybe I'll give it a go And I absolutely loved it. I thought it was brilliant.
00:25:32
Speaker
It's funny how often that happens when you're like, yeah, I don't think it's for me, but people say it's okay. And then you're like, oh, it's one of the best things I've ever experienced. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I was kind of that way about a monster calls, which I talk about all the time.
00:25:46
Speaker
And then I read it and i was like, wow, that's literally changed my outlook on life. yeah That's why people are saying it's good. Okay, yes they were right. Yeah. Turns out popular doesn't always mean bad. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah. um Amazing. A great choice. um And ah nice to hear about your kind of journey with that being apprehensive about it and then falling in love with it.
00:26:09
Speaker
um In the next half of the episode, ah we are going to get into some of the publishing experiences that Abigail's had along her journey. So agents, editors, publishers, all that jazz.
00:26:21
Speaker
That will be in the extended episode available on patreon.com slash right and wrong. so I have all this doubt or whether it's just a writer thing, but yeah. it's I think writers just talk about it more probably. Maybe, maybe. Yeah.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. yeah um Well, thank you so much,
Episode Wrap-Up
00:26:41
Speaker
Abigail. This is, this has been great. We're at the end of the episode now, but it's been so fun chatting with you and speaking with you and hearing all about, uh, the secret collector, your debut novel and the kind of the, the long journey that it's been on, um for everyone listening that is going to be out right now as of you listening to this so you'll be able to find it in all the usual places but yeah thank you so much Abigail it's been awesome meeting you and and chatting with you thank you too I've really enjoyed it thanks so much And for everyone listening, if you want to keep up with what Abigail is doing, you can follow her on Twitter at AbigailSJ26, on Instagram at AbigailJohnsonAuthor, or on her website, AbigailJohnsonAuthor.co.uk.
00:27:18
Speaker
To support the podcast, like, follow, and subscribe. Join the Patreon for ad-free extended episodes and check out my other podcasts, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes. Thanks again, Abigail, and thanks to everyone listening. We will catch you on the next episode.